


Your Sass Has Reached Toxic Levels

by onstraysod



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Jokes, Banter, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Human K-2SO, Hurt/Comfort, Kay bears more than a passing resemblance to the pilot of Serenity, Lots of Star Wars name-dropping, Only One Bed, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, Undercover as a Couple, Unresolved Sexual Tension, drunk!Jyn is a joy to write, featuring every trope in the book, in case I hadn't made that clear yet, or slightly annoyed co-workers to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-24 20:12:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9784274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: Jyn Erso has just received permission from the Alliance High Council to leave on her first independent mission to aid the organization's rebellion against the Empire. Unfortunately for Jyn, the Council is partnering her with Kay Tuesseau: a snarky but brilliant hacker and inventor who has never tried to hide his dislike. Using aliases to go undercover to an Imperial gala to steal vital intel, Jyn and Kay are forced to pretend to be a happy couple. Copious amounts of salt and bickering ensue. But when their mission encounters complications, they must put aside their differences and work together to escape the Empire, discovering along the way that they make a far better team than they could ever have imagined.





	1. Assignment

**Author's Note:**

> My paltry excuses for this are as follows:
> 
> \- I'm besotted with the idea of Jyn x K-2SO (aka KerSO)  
> \- I love Rogue One Modern AU moodboards and aesthetic sets  
> \- I wanted to write about these amazing characters in our modern world  
> \- Felicity Jones is adorable; Alan Tudyk is adorable; I thought their characters (with K2 in human form) would be adorable together

Cassian met her at the door that morning. "The Council has approved sending you on an undercover mission."

"Really?" Jyn was ecstatic. Finally, after months of training, tagging along on team missions, and proving her trustworthiness time and time again to the Alliance, she was being given the opportunity to act independently, to utilize all her energy and anger and cunning out in the field. "What's our target?"

Cassian raised an eyebrow. Jyn noticed - belatedly in her excitement - that he was scowling, a certain sign that something was amiss." _Our_ target?"

His emphasis on the word "our" immediately set Jyn on edge. "Yes, our. You mean they're sending me out alone? That's unusual, isn't it?"

"No, not alone. You'll be going with a partner." Cassian was gazing straight ahead as they walked side by side towards the command center, avoiding Jyn's eyes.

"Not you, I take it? Then who?"

Cassian glanced at her, then gave a gruff bark of a laugh. "Oh I'm not going to be the bearer of this news. I'll let the Council tell you. You're less likely to choke a senator than a lowly intelligence officer like me."

Perplexed and vaguely uneasy, Jyn followed him into the Alliance's command center. It was little more than a boardroom with tinted windows and a large flatscreen upon which various live feeds from spy cameras placed in hot zones around the world were displaying scenes of uniformed, jack-booted Imperials harassing ordinary citizens. Around the long, circular table almost all of the members of Cassian's command - informally named Rogue One - were already settled in their seats, as were some of the members of the Alliance High Command Council including Generals Draven, Merrick, and Dodonna. At the head of the table stood Senator Mon Mothma. Known to most of the world simply as a progressive politician, she was in actuality the leader of the Resistance to the Empire. Auburn hair perfectly coiffed and white pantsuit immaculately pressed, Mothma smiled warmly at Jyn and waved her to the empty seat at her left hand.

"Congratulations, Jyn. The Council has decided to send you out on your first undercover mission."

"So Cassian was telling me. But not with him?"

Mothma hesitated and Jyn's unease doubled. "No, not with Captain Andor. You must understand the nature of the mission. A gala is being held tomorrow night in the hotel adjourning the ISB building in the Coruscant District. The gala is in celebration of the Empire's science and technology contractors, a kind of thank you party if you will. It will be filled with high-ranking Imperial officers, but it offers the best opportunity we've yet had of infiltrating an ISB field station. As you're aware, every ISB office holds a complete dossier file on all Imperial personnel, including clandestine agents: this file would be of incalculable value to the Alliance. But because Captain Andor previously infiltrated the Empire under an alias, we fear there is a risk of his being recognized, even though his contacts at the time were relatively low-ranking officers. As a former Imperial himself, Bodhi cannot be sent, nor can Chirrut for obvious reasons--"

"Not obvious to me," Chirrut piped up from the far end of the table.

"-- And though Baze was a possibility, the parameters of the mission, its objective and the technical nature of the obstacles you will face to reach and access the personnel file, are such that the Council felt it would be prudent to partner you with--"

"Oh no," Jyn interrupted, the words slipping out before she had the chance to censor herself. "Not him."

"Jyn--" Cassian started, but she was shaking her head, her jaw set and angry.

"He doesn't want to work with me, Cassian, he's made that abundantly clear ever since I joined the team."

Mothma was looking at Cassian but turned her attention back to Jyn. "He has the technical skills needed for this mission and you have the operational skills. You have worked together successfully before, have you not?"

"Well, yes but-- Those were team missions," Jyn said. "Cassian was always there to-- to--"

"Play peacemaker?" Mothma asked, one eyebrow steeply arched.

"For lack of a better term," Jyn conceded.

The senator turned back to Cassian. "You assured me this wouldn't be a problem."

"And it won't be. Look, Jyn," he said, leaning forward in his chair and fixing her with a sharp glance. "The two of you have had your differences, yes--"

"The differences have all been on his side, not mine," she insisted.

"Be that as it may, you can still work together. I have every confidence in both of you. I will be the first one to concede that he can be somewhat--" Cassian groped for the correct word to apply to his best friend, " --difficult sometimes--"

"Difficult. Obnoxious. Borderline abusive," Jyn said.

"--But the same goes for you, too," Cassian continued. When Jyn opened her mouth to protest, Cassian shook his head. "No, you can't deny it. Remember the first time we met? You tried to give me a bloody nose." There was a smattering of chuckles around the table, which only made Jyn feel more indignant.

"Apples and oranges," Jyn said. "I didn't know you then, I didn't trust you. He's had plenty of time to get to know me, trust me, but he's chosen not to. Instead he persists in treating me like nothing more than an annoyance, as if my very presence is some kind of personal insult to him." She looked from Cassian to Mothma, adding miserably: "Of all the people you could have sent me on my first mission with, why did it have to be The Droid?"

At just that moment the door of the command center opened and Kay Tuesseau entered, whistling. "Sorry I'm late," he said, seeming not in the least sorry as he tossed a tablet upon the table and threw himself into an empty chair. He was dressed in the same casual manner he always was - jeans and a black jacket over a Led Zeppelin t-shirt - and his blond hair was badly tousled, as if he'd just risen from a clandestine nap somewhere in the bowels of the building where he was least likely to get caught. At least that was what Jyn suspected.

"I was trying to fix a botched upload a couple of those little twerps in IT performed last night," Kay announced, swiveling in his seat to address Senator Mothma directly. "We really need to clean house down there, there's so much incompetence. And by the way, if one of them has the temerity to come to you with some ridiculous allegation that I hit them, they're lying. Just to give you a heads-up."

"Kay," Cassian said, giving him a dark look, "what did you do?"

Kay spread his hands innocently. "I-- may have slapped one of them _. Gently_." He emphasized the word. "But it was a really stupid mistake and, in my defense, he was really asking for it."

"We'll address the staffing in the IT department - and your most recent infraction of Alliance behavioral codes - later," Mothma said, suppressing a sigh. "Right now perhaps you would be interested in learning about the mission we're sending you on?"

"Yeah, great. Where are Cassian and I going?" Kay asked.

"You and Captain Andor are not going anywhere," Draven spoke up, his tone as mirthless as ever. "You'll be going on this mission with Ms. Erso."

Kay froze, wide-eyed with disbelief. "You-- No. No, no, no. Her? Absolutely not. You've got to be kidding."

Jyn leaned forward, smiling sweetly, and waved down the table at Kay. "Yep, I'm right here, hearing all of this." Kay ignored her.

"I work with Cassian. That's the way it's always been, that's the way it has to be--"

"Well that is a considerable problem," Mothma said, crossing her arms and considering him coldly. "You're part of a team, Tuesseau, and if there's only one member of that team that you feel comfortable working with, perhaps it is time for us to reassess your usefulness to this organization."

Kay held up his hands, palms out in a gesture of supplication. "What I mean is, I trust Cassian. I have no concerns about working with Cassian. But I have serious reservations about her readiness for this--"

"She has been approved for all field operations," Draven informed him. "The Council put through her authorization just yesterday."

"Well then the Council's clearly lost its mind!"

"I beg your pardon?" Mothma said, obviously incensed. Kay blanched a bit but didn't back down.

"She's liable to get us both killed or, at the very least, to expose us - which, in Imperial company, is the same thing. She has zero sense of self-control."

"That's not fair, Kay," Cassian interjected.

"And it's not true," Jyn said heatedly. "Have I ever jeopardized a mission?" She looked around the table at the other members of the Rogue One team. "Have I ever endangered anyone's life?"

It was Kay's turn now to lean forward against the table and gaze down angrily at Jyn. He raised both of his hands, waving them wildly in the air in front of him. "I don't have enough fingers to count the number of times you've endangered a mission or a life!"

"Oh really? Please, elaborate!" Jyn demanded.

Kay put up one finger. "Stabbing a flight attendant--"

"That was a misunderstanding."

Second finger. "Almost running down a deck crew member--"

"That was an accident, I misjudged the distance--"

Third finger. "Setting off the fire alarm and causing the evacuation of an entire hotel full of Imperial personnel--"

"That wasn't my fault, the directions on the popcorn said two minutes, it hadn't even been fifty seconds before the bag started smoking--"

Fourth finger. "Knocking Bodhi unconscious with a screwdriver."

Jyn was silent for a moment. The pilot sank down a little in his chair, reaching up unconsciously to rub at a spot on his skull. "I've apologized for that," Jyn began.

Kay turned sharply to face him. "Bodhi?"

"It-- does still hurt sometimes," Bodhi admitted very quietly. He caught Jyn's eyes and silently mouthed _Sorry_.

"Do I need to keep going?" Kay asked, looking from Mothma to Draven to Dodonna.

"All you've proven is that I made some mistakes during my training," Jyn said heatedly. "As I'm sure everyone in the Alliance has. But I've learned from my mistakes. You, on the other hand, persist with a bad attitude and a habit of sharing a litany of pessimistic, unasked for statistics which, in my opinion, endanger every mission far more than anything I've ever done!"

"Well since you find my contributions to our missions so unhelpful, perhaps you should quit the team and take an admin job on the budget committee! God knows no one down there has any concept of statistics if the last quarter funding shortfall is any indication!"

Jyn was barely able to keep the volume of her voice below a shout. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, seeing as how you find my presence on the team so very odious--"

"Not the word I would have used, but since it fits--"

"Enough!" Merrick slammed the flat of his hand down upon the table, his pilot's ring striking the laminate with a sharp, metallic clang. The room immediately fell silent. "This is ridiculous. You are the only two operatives we currently have capable of being sent on this particular mission, and the intel at stake here is too valuable to let slip because of some petty personal animosity!"

"General Merrick is right," Mothma said, staring hard at both Kay and Jyn. "This is a critical moment for the Alliance and this information could prove vital to all our future operations. If the two of you cannot put aside your differences to work effectively together on this mission, you are not worthy to call yourselves Rebels and we will have no further use for your services."

This sobered them both instantly. Jyn, for her part, had struggled too long for the respect of the other operatives, as well as the Alliance High Command, to walk away before her first mission. Taking a deep breath, she spoke calmly. "I have no intention of putting personal differences ahead of the needs of the Alliance. I'm confident Kay and I can work together successfully and retrieve the needed intel." Hesitantly, she glanced down the table at her erstwhile counterpart. Kay nodded slowly.

"Absolutely. What she said."

Mothma shook her head. "I'll need better assurances from you than that," she told him.

Kay sat up very straight and, folding his hands demurely on the tabletop before him, he said: "Whatever my own personal doubts and concerns may be, the Council has voted and what the Council has decided, it is not my place to gainsay."

"Very pretty," Mothma said with no small amount of sarcasm. "You'll be held to that. Both of you," she added, glancing at Jyn. "Now that we're in agreement, General Dodonna will brief you on the details of the mission."

"These folders contain basic background information on the aliases you'll be using," the stately military man said, passing them both dossiers containing various forms of phony I.D. "Some of our hackers have already added your aliases to the Imperial guest list. Not to increase your misgivings about this mission, but please be advised that you'll be going in as a couple."

"Like a couple couple?" Kay asked with some alarm.

"Is there another kind?" Dodonna asked wryly.

Kay shrugged. "A couple of buddies. A couple of coworkers. A couple of circus clowns--"

"Don't worry, Kay," Jyn said with faux cheerfulness, glancing through her dossier. "I promise I'll try to keep my hands to myself." She glanced up in time to see Cassian passing his hand over his mouth to hide a grin.

"Thank you, I realize it will be difficult but I do appreciate the effort," Kay mocked in reply.

"As you can see, the Venator Hotel adjoins the ISB building by this ground level corridor and this skywalk." Dodonna was pointing to a building schematic he had brought up on the flatscreen. "Now regional ISB offices like this one largely depend on coded electronic security systems to keep out intruders, so we don't foresee there being a large number of stormtrooper guards within the building itself. However, owing to the large number of Imperial higher-ups attending the gala, you may encounter some guards patrolling in either of these access points." The general pointed again to the corridor and skywalk in the schematic. "Getting inside the building will require you, Tuesseau, to hack separately into the systems protecting each door. Alternatively, you could try to acquire the keycard of a member of the Imperial high command, but as this would inevitably require physical confrontation, we don't advise it."

Jyn watched Kay turn slowly and dramatically to look at her as Dodonna continued speaking. _They don't advise it_ , he mouthed. She clenched her fist to stop herself from flashing her middle finger.

"The personnel file in question should be accessible from any of the ISB's non-networked computers. Once you have downloaded it, return as quickly and unobtrusively to the gala as possible. You'll spend the night in the hotel in the room we've reserved under your aliases, where you'll transmit the intel to us via a secure uplink. We'll leave the coordination of your exact activities to your own discretion."

"I'm sorry," Kay said, raising his hand, "but did you say room? As in _one room_?"

"You're pretending to be a couple, Kay," Cassian said, shaking his head slowly. "Do you really think it would be convincing if you were booked into separate rooms?"

"Maybe she snores," Kay suggested. "Maybe I need more room for all of my--" He glanced at his dossier, "Virtual reality design equipment. Maybe we can't sleep in the same bed for some reason--"

"Maybe we'll both have already been shot and killed before we have to attempt it," Jyn muttered beneath her breath. Aware that General Merrick's piercing gaze was on her, she cleared her throat and covered her comment by asking: "How will we get back?"

"You'll fly back the next morning," Merrick said. "Provided everything goes well."

"And if it doesn't go well?" Kay asked, one eyebrow arched. Glancing at Jyn he added: "Not that I have any reason to suspect that it won't, like somebody with an anger management problem assassinating a high-ranking Imperial official--"

"If it goes badly, there is a safe house in the Coruscant District," Draven interrupted, rising from his chair, clearly tired of the meeting. "Go there, get word back to us, and lay low for a couple of days until we can extract you."

"If there are no further questions, we'll adjourn and let the two of you prepare," Mothma said. As no one spoke the meeting was considered finished and everyone rose, filing out of the command center in ones and twos. As Jyn moved toward the door, Baze laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Good luck, little sister."

She gave him a fond smile. "Thanks Baze. But I have a feeling I'll need a lot more than luck for this mission. A large bottle of aspirin, a strong gag, and a stun gun would be nice."

Chirrut smiled. "Sounds kinky."

Jyn didn't dignify that with a response.

***

Kay was hot on Cassian's heels as he left the room, heading down the corridor that led to the commissary. "You know this is a horrible mistake. Please tell me you know that," he was arguing.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh come on, Cassian, yes you do! She's unpredictable. Volatile. She's likely to blow the head off the first Imperial officer she sees and get us both killed. I've done the calculations. There's a 74.6% chance--"

"No statistics!" Cassian cried, rounding on him. "And you're wrong about Jyn. But if it does seem at some point like her temper is flying out of control, you just have to learn how to manage her. How to calm her."

"Manage her? _Calm her??_ " Kay was incredulous. "I'm not a babysitter, Cassian. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that I shouldn't have to do either of those things, how exactly am I supposed to do them?"

Cassian smiled. "Ask her to tell you about her mother."

"What?"

"Just do it. Ask about her mother. It works, I've seen it. She turns into a completely different person when she talks about her mother."

"Oh, well in that case I'll have her start talking about her mother as soon as we leave."

Cassian sighed. "Just-- try. Try to get along with her. For me, for my sake. Okay? Can you do that?"

Kay folded his arms across his chest. "Why? Why is this so important to you?"

"I can't explain, exactly--"

"No, I think I get it. You want the best man at your future wedding not to hate the bride, is that it?"

"No, that's not it!" Cassian said with some heat. "You've got the wrong end of the stick here, Kay, not for the first time, and besides, what makes you think you'd be my best man anyway, huh?"

Kay started to argue, but seeing the expression on Cassian's face he laughed instead. "Okay, okay. For you and for the Alliance I'll-- tolerate her," he finished lamely.

"That's so big of you," Cassian mocked, squeezing his shoulder. "Really, really admirable. Gets me right here--" he tapped on his chest.

"I am very selfless."

"All kidding aside, though, I think tolerating her will come a lot easier to you than you want to admit," Cassian said.

Kay's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Cassian waved his hand. "Ah, never mind. Come on. Let's get something to eat. Lunch is on you, by the way."

***

Having spent about an hour committing the details of her alias to memory, Jyn headed after lunch to the Alliance armory. Here she was supplied with a suitcase for her journey, one with a false bottom in which she could stow her weapons in safety, even for the flight. Her measurements were taken and she was informed that a suitable ensemble for the gala would be delivered to her apartment that evening. Jyn selected a small automatic with a silencer, one that she could wear discreetly strapped to her thigh beneath her dress, and several rounds of ammunition. She also picked up an extensible baton, a weapon she was comfortable with, very similar to the close combat tools she had wielded during her days as a teenage freedom fighter in Saw Gerrera's band of guerillas. As she was packing the weapons away, along with various other supplies, she heard the tapping of a staff upon the stone floor and turned to find Chirrut approaching her.

"I am sorry, Jyn, that your first independent assignment is disappointing to you," he said.

"It's not disappointing." She almost convinced herself, but not quite. The quirk of Chirrut's lips plainly demonstrated that she hadn't convinced him either. "Truly, I am grateful to be going out on a mission. It's just--"

"You don't like Kay."

"No. No, that's not it at all. I actually don't dislike him. And we have worked well together on our previous missions. I just wish-- I wish he didn't dislike me as much as he clearly does."

Chirrut smiled and rested his chin for a moment upon the head of his staff. "When a person loses their sight, their other senses become heightened, more acute. In some ways this gives us an advantage over seeing people. People who see focus too much on appearances, on superficial things. Whereas a blind person like me can pick up on all sorts of different cues about every situation: fluctuations in temperature, a tremor in someone's voice when they speak, nervous little movements: things of that nature. Sometimes it is these small details that reveal the truth obscured by appearance."

Jyn stared at him silently for a moment. "I don't understand. Why are you telling me this?"

"Take it from a blind man, Jyn," Chirrut said. "Things aren't always the way that they appear to be."

***

At the end of the day Cassian walked Jyn out of Alliance Headquarters, their way taking them through the bustling, cavernous hangar where the organization's fleet of private planes were berthed. For most missions the Rogue One team caught a flight from Merrick or Antilles or one of the other ace pilots employed by the Alliance, but because the Coruscant District would be playing host to a special Imperial event, it was deemed unwise for any planes that could be linked to the Rebellion to be sent into the city's airspace: just in case any unfriendly eyes were watching. Jyn and Kay would be flying commercial under their assumed identities.

"It's going to be fine," Cassian was reassuring Jyn. "I promise. Kay is a professional. When he focuses in on a mission, all that other stuff just falls to the side."

Jyn gave him a skeptical look. "I hope you're right."

"You've packed a gun, right? Kay can't hit the broad side of a barn so he's not authorized to carry one on a mission. That will all be left to you."

"Yes, I've got one." Jyn halted abruptly, turning to face Cassian. "Why do you think he hates me so much?"

Cassian's dark eyes rounded in surprise. "Hates you? Oh Jyn, I don't think he hates you at all." Jyn was struck by the strangeness of his expression: somewhat amused, a little sad.

"Well I certainly can't tell it."

Cassian shrugged. "That's just Kay. He's odd like that."

"You mean he's treated other people like this, other people new to the Alliance?"

"Like this, like the way he treats you?" Cassian considered it. "Not exactly."

"Right." Jyn nodded, frowning. "That's what I thought. I'll see you in a couple of days, Cassian. Provided I'm not in prison for murdering your friend before then."

As Cassian watched Jyn leave, he was joined by Bodhi and Chirrut. "I'm not at all sure the Empire is the biggest danger to that particular mission," Bodhi commented.

Cassian laughed. "Oh, you people. You just don't get it, do you? Everybody's got the wrong end of the stick."

"The blind leading the blind." Chirrut reached up and put his hand on Cassian's shoulder. "Good thing you and I see so clearly for the rest of them, Captain Andor."

***

It was a two hour flight to their destination the next day and, unfortunately for both Jyn and Kay, the Alliance had managed to get them seats together. More fortunately, at least for Jyn, their fellow passengers were drawing the bulk of Kay's ire.

"Look at these pathetic creatures," he sneered, watching a man in rumpled khakis with large yellow sweat stains beneath his arms try and heft his briefcase into the overhead bin. "Oh great, a baby," he added as a woman passed him in the aisle, cooing to the infant swaddled in her arms.

"You really are a misanthrope, aren't you?"

Kay rounded on Jyn. "No I'm not. I don't hate all human beings." He was silent for a moment before adding: "Just the stupid ones."

"And you think everyone is stupid compared to you."

"I never said that."

"But you don't deny thinking it."

"You're not exactly Miss Congeniality yourself, you know," he countered. "How many people did you physically assault on our last mission? Nineteen? Twenty? That one guy was just a waiter--"

"I thought he had a weapon." Jyn's tone was instantly defensive. "I was doing it to protect the team. Your bad attitude, on the other hand, serves no useful purpose."

"I disagree."

"Oh really? Do tell."

"It makes me feel better."

Jyn rolled her eyes: the first of many times, she anticipated. Good thing she'd brought the aspirin. "You do know why everyone calls you The Droid, don't you?"

"Obviously. It's because I'm so quick-witted and can interface so easily with all manner of machines."

"Wrong. It's because you're annoying, won't shut up, and you exhibit no discernible signs of normal human emotion."

Kay looked rather pleased by this description. "Emotion is a weakness which I have eliminated for the sake of working more efficiently."

Sighing, Jyn turned away from him, as much as she could in that cramped space beside the window. Opening her carry-on bag she rummaged for a distraction, finding a paperback she was halfway through.

"What's that?" Kay asked almost immediately, looking over critically at the dogeared volume on her lap.

"It's a book. You know, things made of paper with words printed on them."

"Archaic." Kay brought a small tablet out of the inside pocket of his jacket and swiped his finger across the screen, lighting it. "While you're enjoying your one book, I'll be browsing the 1,400 volumes this baby holds, not to mention the twenty hours of music and fifteen hours of video. Hey, before you finish that paragraph you're reading, would you mind doing a search for good sushi restaurants in Coruscant-- Oh, that's right, you can't. _Because that's a book_."

Jyn gave him a bright smile. "At least I can keep using my book during takeoff." And she nodded in the direction of the aisle where a flight attendant was currently standing, arms folded, glaring down at Kay.

"Right," he said quietly, switching off the device.

The plane was soon taxing down the runway and Jyn, gripped by the slight anxiety that always caused her stomach to roll at the beginning of flights, closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, focusing on the rhythm of her breathing.

"You're afraid of flying." Kay's voice interrupted the serenity of her calming exercises and Jyn opened her eyes to glare at him. He shrugged. "I just never noticed that before."

"Maybe on our past missions you were too busy being a jerk to notice."

Kay ignored this. "You know statistically there's very little reason for worry. You are almost 75% more likely to be fatally or seriously injured in a car accident than in a plane crash. The airline we're flying on has an excellent safety record, almost a full 98% of all their flights have been incident free." He was blissfully silent for a moment and Jyn thought she would be able to return to her meditation before he said: "Takeoff, however, is the most dangerous part of a flight. If a plane is going to experience engine failure, for example, there's a 63.4% chance that it will happen during takeoff."

Jyn stared at him, aware that her knuckles had gone bone-white with how tightly she was gripping the armrests of her seat. Whether it was out of fear or to prevent herself from punching Kay in the face, she was not at all certain.

"I hate you," she said.

Kay shrugged, mischief sparkling in his eyes. "Just trying to replace your baseless anxieties with cold, hard facts."

For the next hour Jyn refused to acknowledge him, relying on concentration exercises she had been practicing in training with Cassian to lose herself resolutely in her novel. But after Kay had complained about the inane plot of the in-flight movie (it was animated), the lack of leg room, and the absence of a pillow and blanket -- "This is a two-hour flight, sir," the same surly flight attendant informed him. "We don't hand out pillows and blankets for two-hour daytime flights" -- Jyn decided that there was no meditation technique strong enough to contain her irritation and that perhaps engaging him in an argument would be less stressful for everyone on board. Apropos of nothing, therefore, she suddenly said: "Cassian's the one responsible for recruiting me, you know."

As she had anticipated, she immediately had Kay's full attention. "What are you talking about?"

"Bringing me in. Upsetting the balance of your-- partnership." She watched him carefully for a reaction. "I didn't force my way in, I didn't even want to join the Alliance. Cassian gave me no choice."

Kay gave her a sly look from beneath his brows. "Really? Because that's not the way I heard it. I heard he gave you a choice between joining the Alliance or going to prison."

"I wouldn't have gone to prison for that!"

"No? For knocking over an Imperial food transport and throwing rations over the fence into a labor camp? Very Robin Hood of you, by the way, but yeah, you most certainly would have gone to prison. There's no way the Empire would have let you get away with that and you can bet they have enough judges in their pockets to have ensured a life sentence."

"Fine, I would have gone to prison. So I joined the Alliance instead. What I'm trying to say is that it was Cassian who brought me in, so all your animosity towards me is utterly wasted. If you want to blame someone, blame him. You can resent me all you want but it wasn't my idea to break up the band."

"Break up the band, what does that even mean?" he asked, turning in his seat to face her. "I have no idea what you're saying right now."

"Forget it." Jyn fell silent for a moment but then couldn't help but add: "I'm just trying to say that I didn't intentionally set out to destroy your relationship with Cassian."

Kay was staring at her, incredulous. "How have you destroyed my relationship with Cassian?? He's my best friend, he's been my best friend for like six years, what makes you think that could be ruined simply because you joined Rogue One--"

"Okay, okay, forget it!" Jyn cried, holding up her hands. "I'm sorry I said anything." Both leaning back against their seats, they lapsed into a tense silence. Kay started tapping a discordant rhythm out on the armrest with his fingers and Jyn began chewing on her bottom lip. It already felt to her like they had been on this mission for days, and yet they were still a half hour from touching down in Coruscant.

Finally, Kay turned to her and said: "Look, I'll concede that we may have gotten off to a-- rocky start to our working relationship. Maybe this mission together is just what we need to-- you know. Reset things."

Jyn looked at him in astonishment. "You mean that?"

"Yes." He nodded. "I absolutely mean that. For my part I am ready and willing to forgive."

Jyn could only gape at him for a moment, before her fury burst forth from her mouth. "You-- _you forgive?_ Forgive what??"

Kay waved his hand back and forth between them. "Whatever this is, this animosity towards me, this envy--"

Jyn had now turned fully in her chair to face him and was punctuating each of her words with a finger thrust hard into his bicep. "You're the one who, at our first meeting, grabbed me by the neck and threw me to the ground!" she cried. "I'm the one who should be forgiving!"

The flight attendant was back. "Is there a problem?"

"Yes," Jyn said immediately. "And I'm chained to it for the next two days at least!"

Kay smirked up at the attendant. "She means me," he said, delighted. "I'm the problem."

Groaning, Jyn dug into her carry-on bag and found the bottle of aspirin. Her head was already aching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been quite awhile since I flew, so if I got my details wrong please just pretend that this particular airline has some different policies. ;)
> 
> No, I have no idea why Jyn hit Bodhi with a screwdriver.


	2. Infiltration: Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretending to be a happy couple, Jyn and Kay infiltrate the Empire's gala, mingling with such Imperial luminaries as Admiral Piett, Rae Sloane, and Brendol Hux. But can they keep their bickering under control long enough to allow them to complete their mission and escape?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned into a much longer one than I had anticipated, so I'm splitting it into two parts.

The Venator Hotel and the Imperial Security Bureau office in the Coruscant District stood like shiny switchblades in the maze of skyscrapers, their angled pinnacles stabbing the clouds. The only difference in their appearance was that the ISB building was considerably shorter and lacked the gold-lettered marquee above its entrance. In fact, it lacked any sort of markings at all, save for the cogwheel symbol of the Empire. The mission of the ISB was to observe from the shadows, not to draw attention.

The taxi dropped Jyn and Kay off at the doors of the hotel and they soon arrived at their suite on the fourteenth floor. After sweeping each room for hidden cameras and listening devices - it was an Imperial owned hotel, after all - Kay felt free to express his disappointment.

"Couldn't the Alliance have sprung for a suite with a mini bar?!" he cried.

"That is a disappointment," Jyn murmured. "I could certainly use a stiff drink right about now."

The suite was elegant, if somewhat lacking in amenities. Jyn felt like a brief nap might revive her after the trying flight, but Kay somehow managed to beat her to the bedroom where he flopped down on the bed and switched on the television. "Do you think the Council will pick up the tab if I order something off Pay-Per-View?" he mused.

Jyn sighed. "Give it a try. I'm going to go take a bath."

"Suit yourself. But remember, we've got--" Kay checked his wrist watch, "--a little under four hours to get ready for the gala."

"Oh, trust me," she said, smiling sweetly at him over her shoulder, "I'm counting the minutes."

Jyn let the bath water run as hot as possible, filling the bathroom with steam. As she waited for the tub to fill she thought about her argument with Kay on the plane. He had denied that his animosity had anything to do with perceiving Jyn as a threat to his friendship with Cassian, which was odd. She had expected to needle him into admitting it; instead he’d acted like the idea of her coming between them had never crossed his mind. But he had to be lying, for what else could it be? What other possible reason could he have for singling her out in the way that he always did?

She kept going over it all in her mind while she relaxed in the bath, making no more progress in puzzling it out. By the time she emerged and wrapped herself in a towel, the mirror was filmed with steam and she absent-mindedly doodled a large heart on its surface with her finger.

Inside the heart she wrote: _Kay is an ass._

Venturing out of the bathroom, Jyn found that he had left the bedroom and was sitting at a table in the main living area, tapping rapidly away at his tablet.

“What are you doing?” she asked, standing in the doorway.

“Writing a virus,” he answered, not looking up. “One that will shut down any security alarms in the ISB building. I should be able to upload it from a security panel next to one of the doors.”

“What about cameras?”

Kay shook his head, continuing to type. “No security cameras in or outside ISB facilities. They’re so paranoid they don’t want any record of who works for which office or what time they leave at the end of the day or who’s banging which secretary on their lunch hour.”

“Well that’s one thing in our favor.”

“Yeah but we—“ Looking up at last, Kay saw Jyn standing there in a towel with her wet hair spilling over her shoulders, and whatever he was on the verge of saying seemed to lodge in his throat. He opened his mouth but no sound came out.

“What?” Jyn asked.

Kay closed his mouth, then opened it again. “Shouldn’t you be— putting on some clothes or something?”

Jyn smirked. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No- well, yes, actually, because now we only have—“ He checked his watch again, “--two hours and fifty-five minutes before the gala and it looks like you have a lot of—“ He gestured with his stylus, “woman stuff to do.”

Rolling her eyes and sighing, Jyn pivoted and went into the bedroom. As she styled her hair later, she heard Kay emerge from the shower and cry out “I saw what you wrote on the mirror!” It improved her mood - as he might have said - one-hundred percent.

Kay was in the process of wiping the suite for fingerprints when Jyn later emerged from the bedroom, dressed in the ensemble the Alliance had provided her for the gala. She wore a dress of black silk velvet that hugged the curve of her hips and was cut well above her knees, still low enough to conceal the gun strapped by a garter to her thigh. The neckline was a broad vee, plunging down from her shoulders to a point just between the swell of her breasts, and she had paired the dress with heels tied with black ribbons around her ankles that accentuated the lean line of her legs. Her hair was fixed in a braided knot at the back of her neck, tendrils left to float down on either side of her face, and she had spent longer on her make-up than she ever had in her life, lining her hazel eyes with smoky shadow and her pouted lips with a blood-bright shade of red lipstick.

Catching sight of her, Kay immediately froze and the two partners stared at each other in mutual astonishment. Jyn had certainly never seen Kay looking so polished and put together. It was a bit of a revelation. His blonde hair was neatly styled and his gun-metal gray suit fit his body like an immaculately cut glove. Clearly the Alliance had spared no expense to make them both look the part.

"I thought it was black tie," Jyn stammered suddenly, eager to break the awkward silence that had extended far too long.

"My tie's black. Well-- dark grey," Kay said, considering it as he smoothed a hand down its length. "Men don't have to wear tuxedos to black tie events anymore, you know."

"Right. Of course." Jyn actually had no idea: she had never attended a black tie event before. She was, at that moment, wearing fancier clothes than she had ever seen, let alone touched. As Kay was continuing to stare at her, she forced a smile and turned a full circle. "You can say something about how I look now."

He nodded, his face a blank. "Yeah. Well, you clean up good."

Jyn felt her blood pressure spike behind her eyes. Grinding her teeth, she thrust out her hand toward him. Senator Mothma had seen that she was supplied with a tasteful diamond pendant, hung on a thin silver chain. "Would you mind?" Jyn snapped.

"No thanks, I'm afraid it would clash with my cufflinks." Smirking, Kay enjoyed his joke for about five seconds before the murderous look on Jyn's face convinced him to behave. Jyn was all too glad to turn away from him to allow him to fix the necklace around her throat, feeling his fingers fumble with the clasp against the nape of her neck.

"What's taking so long?" she huffed after a few moments.

"This damn clasp-- It's tiny--"

"It's a lobster claw clasp and it's not that difficult, at least not for anyone with average motor skills."

"My motor skills are exceptional, I'll have you know," Kay said, still struggling to fasten it. "I got my yearly Alliance physical just last week, did I tell you? I'm in peak health. Perfect blood pressure, above average resting heart rate, great muscle ratio. Stellar virility."

"They don't test virility!" Jyn cried in disgust. "Are you done yet?"

"Just-- Yes, got it." The pendant settled against Jyn's sternum, glittering even in the low light of the suite, but Kay's fingers remained on the clasp. Jyn realized that he had leaned down, closer to her neck, and she shivered when his thumb slid over the clasp and accidentally brushed the fine hairs that covered her skin.

"Your perfume-- It's lilacs, isn't it?"

She pulled away from him quickly. "Congratulations, your olfactory senses seem to be working as well." She moved off to consider her reflection in a full-length mirror on the wall, briefly wondering if she had overdone her blush: the color in her cheeks was rather high. "So, are we ready?"

"Just a minute. I need to finish wiping the room." Kay had invented for the Alliance a small, handheld device capable of destroying fingerprints with controlled bursts of infrared light and he was using this now, passing it slowly over a light switch, then the handle of the closet door. "Got to cover our tracks," he said.

"Why now? We'll be coming back here later."

Kay glanced at her. "You know as well as I do that we clean up first, just in case things go pear-shaped."

"And what could possibly go pear-shaped? We're only attending an Imperial gala and stealing highly classified intel out from beneath their noses."

"Oh, I don't know," Kay said, finishing the cleaning and tucking the device back into the inside pocket of his coat. "How reckless are you feeling tonight?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I don't trust you not to take a potshot at the first Imperial jackass you encounter down there." He had walked closer and was standing in front of her, inspecting her critically. "That creep in white, for instance." Jyn gave him her sweetest smile.

"I promise, I'll be on my very best behavior."

"Your fingers are crossed behind your back, aren't they?"

"I don't know what you mean." She unlaced her fingers and brought her hands back around to the front of her body, smoothing her skirt. "Shall we?"

Kay sighed dramatically and, passing her, went to the door. Jyn coughed loudly and he pivoted on his heel, returning with a grimace to offer her his arm.

"That's better." She put her left arm through his and, laying her right hand on his forearm, gave it a vicious pinch.

"That hurt."

"It's only the beginning of your pain if you don't watch yourself."

***

At the entrance to the ballroom on the second floor of the hotel, a man in a smart black uniform was checking off the names of arrivals on his handheld device, a quick tap with a stylus approving who was on the list and who was not. As they approached Jyn linked her arms more tightly around Kay's and he cleared his throat, offering the man a broad smile.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening, sir. May I have your name?”

“Yes, it’s Kay Washburne,” Kay told him.

“Doctor,” Jyn added, fluttering her eyelashes prettily and beaming. “Doctor Kay Washburne. He always forgets, he’s so modest,” she told the officer in a conspiratorial whisper.

Kay laughed nervously. “Yes, well, that’s why I have you, darling, to remind me. This is my girlfriend—“

“Fiancee,” Jyn slipped in quickly. “He always forgets that too.”

“I do? Yeah, I do. Well you know it’s all happened so quickly—“ Kay babbled.

“Liana Hallik,” Jyn told the officer. There was a tense moment as the man scrolled through his device, his face devoid of all humor. Then suddenly he smiled.

“Dr. Washburne, Ms. Hallik – welcome. Please enjoy your evening.”

“Thank you so much,” Kay said, and breathing paired sighs of relief, he and Jyn made their way into the large room.

“You threw me there, sweetheart,” Kay whispered through a tight smile, leaning down towards Jyn. “I don’t remember agreeing to an engagement.”

“I improvised,” Jyn said simply, scanning the groups of people clustered around them.

“Improvisation, oh yes. The thing that gets people killed.”

“Relax. I thought it was better. You know the Empire has a weird thing about pre-marital cohabitation, sex—“

“Wow, did I miss the part in the mission briefing about us having sex tonight?” Kay gasped mockingly. “You’d think I would have noticed—“

“Shut it, you know perfectly well I meant for appearances,” Jyn hissed. “It’s their whole baby-making-for-the-Empire philosophy. They’d trust us more if we were already married and banging out our sixth future jack-booted officer. So I thought an engagement was a good compromise.”

“Fine. But the next time you feel like improvising, could you maybe check with me first?” Kay said. “Particularly if that improvisation involves sharp objects.”

The ballroom was decorated with the kind of sumptuous luxury the Empire denied its subjects. Marbled pillars glistened in the light of massive chandeliers bedecked with crystals; red brocade curtains framed a small stage at one end of the room. There were ice sculptures in each corner depicting Imperial technological marvels, long tables laden with champagne fountains and platters of exotic cheeses and fruits. Waiters in shiny black were scuttling around with silver trays bearing flutes of bubbly and the centerpiece of each of the tables where the guests would sit was what appeared to be a hologram: a small, floating image of the Emperor, Sheev Palpatine, bidding the revelers welcome.

It all made Jyn want to vomit into her clutch.

“I suppose we should mingle a little before sitting down,” Kay said, his tone distasteful.

“Mingle with this crowd?” Jyn pursed her lips, the unpleasant metallic tang of bile on her tongue. “I’d rather infect myself with anthrax.”

“Now, now, darling, smile,” Kay whispered, putting his arm around her waist. “Smile and think about murder and remember that we’re well on our way towards annihilating this whole crowd of miscreants.”

They walked around, arm in arm, looking for a smaller group to infiltrate. Jyn was craning her neck, looking in every direction like a starstruck Imperial sycophant, in actuality matching names to faces. The cream of the Empire was present: General Maximilian Veers, Admiral Conan Antonio Motti, even the blustery, scarlet-haired Brendol Hux, no doubt fresh from the kitchens where he’d poached that night’s assignation. Surrounded by fawners near the stage, his hauteur drawing cold air around him like a fog, was the Grand Moff himself, Wilhuff Tarkin. But as Kay drew her towards one of the tables of refreshments and they took up glasses of champagne, Jyn loosed a disappointed sigh.

“He’s not here.”

“Who?” Kay asked sharply.

“Krennic.” She said the name with a sneer of her lips. “My mother’s murderer. I’d have noticed him, he’d have been strutting around like an albino peacock drawing everyone’s attention.”

“Well thank God for small miracles,” Kay said, eyeing her suspiciously. “If he’s not here you’ll have no need to employ that knife you’re holding.”

“What?” Jyn turned to him, startled. “I’m not holding a knife, you’re—“ Abruptly she looked down and found that she was clutching a cheese knife in her right fist. She laid it back down on the table beside the other piles of silverware. “Okay, you’re right. Perhaps it’s better that he’s not here.”

Kay said nothing, instead reaching into an inside pocket of his jacket and withdrawing a little memorandum book. He flipped to a blank page and began scribbling something with a tiny pencil.

“What are you writing?”

“At this hour, on this day, Jyn Erso conceded that I was right,” he murmured.

“I’m going to leave you," Jyn snarled.

“Oh honey, don't say that!” Kay cried sarcastically. “We just got engaged, and my tiny metal heart couldn't bear it."

“Pardon me,” a slight, neatly uniformed Imperial officer said, approaching them with a small group of compatriots. “I couldn’t help but overhear at the door when you were being admitted. You are Dr. Washburne, are you not?”

Instantly their squabbling banter disappeared. Arm in arm again, Jyn and Kay beamed at the man, pulling their aliases down over themselves like new clothes.

“Indeed, yes I am,” Kay offered his hand. “And you are?”

“Admiral Firmus Piett,” he said, wringing Kay’s hand. “I’ve read about your work in virtual reality interfaces, Dr. Washburne, and I’m incredibly impressed.”

"Well, I'm flattered, Admiral Piett. May I introduce you to my fiancee, Liana Hallik?"

Jyn shook the Admiral's hand and they exchanged pleasantries. "I wasn't at all sure if the Empire had any interest in such technologies," Kay continued slyly. As long as he was playing a part, he might as well try to extract some additional intel with it.

"On the contrary, Dr. Washburne, the Emperor has expressed a desire for our Advanced Weapons Research division to begin looking at the development of virtual simulations for training exercises. I'd be glad to discuss them with you, if you have a moment."

"Certainly."

As Kay and Piett began conversing, Jyn was joined by a tall, exceedingly attractive woman from Piett's group whose thick black curls were worked into an elaborate knot at the back of her head. Although she was wearing an evening gown, the woman’s bearing was clearly military; on her finger Jyn spied the signet ring of an admiral.

“You shouldn’t let him get away with that, you know,” the woman said, eyeing Jyn in a familiar, conspiratorial way.

Her heart going cold in her chest, Jyn faked a confused smile. “I’m sorry?”

“I heard you say you were his fiancée, but you’re not wearing an engagement ring,” the woman continued. “What’s his excuse? Too cash-strapped at the moment? Giving jewelry isn’t really his thing?”

Jyn released her pent-up anxiety in a forced laugh. “Oh! That. No, no, he’s bought me a ring. I’m just having it resized.” She made a show of twisting the fingers of her right hand around the ring finger of her left. “I feel awful, being here without it.”

The woman smiled coldly and extended her hand. “Rae Sloane.”

“Liana Hallik. You’re an admiral, I believe?”

“You know your Imperial hierarchy,” Sloane said, seeming surprised. “I’m impressed. Most of these people – the civilians, I mean – can’t tell an admiral from an ensign. Forgive the imprecation about your fiancé,” she added, nodding towards Kay. “I was making assumptions. Men are always making promises they fail to keep, only ever looking out for their own advantage.” She went silent for a moment, then said in a lower voice: “Always trying to use women like us as their playthings, their personal stepping stones.”

Jyn felt a sudden warmth flame up her neck and into her cheeks. “He’s not like that,” she said quickly. “My fiancé. He’s not like that at all. He’s a good man, honorable, and he’ll never betray me.”

Sloane stared at Jyn, first in surprise, then with a small, bitter twist of a smile on her lips. “Indeed? Well. I can see that you’re very much in love. It’s certainly obvious on his face, every time he looks at you.”

Jyn swallowed down the laugh that rose instinctually at this, choking a bit and covering it by quickly grabbing a champagne flute from a passing waiter and downing a gulp.

“I congratulate you,” Sloane continued. “You’ll want to hang on tight to him, in that case. From my experience the mongoose are far outnumbered by the snakes.”

She walked away then, leaving Jyn perplexed. Piett had shaken Kay’s hand again and moved off towards another group of guests, but before he could rejoin Jyn Kay found his arm grasped by a meaty hand.

"May I congratulate you on your fiancee, sir," Brendol Hux said, giving Kay a convivial leer.

"Uh... yes. Thank you, Commandant."

"A fine filly, that is," Hux continued, looking Jyn up and down as she sipped champagne and gazed about the room. "I bet she runs you ragged, eh?" He leaned closer to Kay, whispering: "Or is she the one doing the riding?"

Incensed by Hux's words and ogling of Jyn, Kay had chosen that moment to take a long gulp of champagne, hoping it would take the hot edge off his anger before he broke the General's nose. Instead he choked rather spectacularly, spraying no small amount of champagne in the direction of a nearby officer who thankfully didn't notice.

Neither did Hux. "Uh oh, there's the boss," he murmured, elbowing Kay in the ribs and nodding in Tarkin's direction. "Better go kiss ass." He pulled a silver flask from his uniform jacket, took a swig, pulled in his considerable gut, and walked away.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kay returned anxiously to Jyn's side.

“Admiral Sloane,” he whispered, eyes bright with nervousness, “what did she say to you?”

Jyn looked at him, bewildered. “She compared you to a mongoose.”

“What?”

“Yeah. It was the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.” She shook her head, as if to clear the confusion. “What about you? What did Piett and Hux say?”

“Hux: nothing you want to know. As far as Piett, he didn’t reveal much of anything more than we'd already suspected or learned from other intel. He did have a few choice words about your old friend, however.”

“Krennic?”

“Yeah, apparently he’s off overseeing the final tests on some new weapons. From the way Piett talked I get the sense no one here is too sorry he wasn’t able to RSVP.”

"I can't say that's a surprise."

"Yeah, but apparently the Emperor's pleased by his work nonetheless. He's being promoted to Director of Advanced Weapons Research."

"Oh. Bully for him." Jyn gripped her champagne glass tighter. "He kills my mother, imprisons my father, and destroys my life, yet he gets promoted--"

"Jyn."

"I starve on the street for a couple of years, robbed of my childhood, until I'm made a teen soldier, and he's got a penthouse in the swankiest part of Coruscant and his own private jet--"

"Jyn," Kay hissed again, taking hold of her elbow. She didn’t notice.

"What does a Directorship come with, I wonder? A salary equal to the GDP of a small Caribbean nation?" She was breathing hard, the light of the room glinting sharp off her narrowed eyes, and her jaw was setting into a rictus of fury. "I swear to God, I want to rip his entrails out with my teeth, but in his absence any officer will do--"

"Honey, did you remember to bring my inhaler?" Kay asked rather loudly, clutching at his throat with one hand. Jyn gave him a bewildered look.

"Your-- what?"

"My inhaler? For the asthma? I feel like--" He feigned a cough and pulled at his collar. "I feel like I'm about to have an attack. Maybe if I could just get some fresh air--"

"There's an exit to the terrace just over there, sir," a helpful junior officer informed Kay, and thanking the man, Kay grabbed Jyn's arm and hustled her towards the door.

"What is this nonsense?" she snapped as they emerged outside on a terrace overlooking the plaza below. All around them the buildings of the Coruscant District shimmered with every color of the rainbow, cast from windows and marquees, electronic billboards and neon signs. 

"Tell me about your mother," Kay said, still holding her arm. Jyn looked at him in open astonishment.

"What? I don't have time for this, I'm going back in--"

"Jyn, no!" He grabbed her by both arms now, turned her to face him. "I want to hear about your mother. I don't know anything about her--"

"You expect me to believe you're interested?" she cried, incredulous.

"Would it surprise you to know that I have a mother?"

"Kind of, I thought you were built in a factory somewhere."

Kay looked somewhat wounded by this. Sighing, he shrugged. "Just-- please tell me about her. I'd like to know about her, I'd like to understand--"

"Understand what? My anger at those bastards in there?"

"What makes you you," he finished simply.

Jyn hesitated. The breeze stirred the tendrils of hair that framed her face and the lights of the city glistened in her eyes. Finally she turned back to Kay.

"She was a geologist. That's how she met my father, they worked on a project together. Their travels and experiments took them to lands that the Empire eventually seized." She walked over to a bench and sat down, Kay joining her. "She loved nature, loved going for hikes, camping out. I remember her teaching me the names of different birds, how to identify them by their plumage, their songs." Jyn smiled softly and Kay mentally reminded himself to thank Cassian for this bit of advice. "She was beautiful and funny and clever and nurturing." She reached up, absent-mindedly, and touched the borrowed diamond pendant.

"You're not wearing it," Kay said, watching her. "The crystal. Was it hers?"

Startled, Jyn stared at him. "How-- How did you know about that?"

"You always wear it. I just assumed."

"Usually tucked into my blouse. I didn't think anyone would notice." Quietly she added: "Least of all you."

"Well I did. Maybe I notice a lot more than you give me credit for." Judging that Jyn had calmed down enough not to pose a lethal threat to the mission, he stood and offered her his hand. "Shall we go back in?'

She nodded and, to Kay's surprise, took his hand rather than rebuffing the gesture. "I know what you were doing, you know." She glanced at him with a smirk. "Softening me up."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kay insisted stiffly. Then, glancing at Jyn, he added: "I'm sorry."

"No, don't apologize. I'm grateful for any excuse to talk about her."

When they reentered the ballroom, couples were settling at tables to await the start of the night's entertainment. Jyn and Kay snagged a table near the edge of the room, near another exit but also - and more unfortunately - near one of the Empire's stormtrooper guards, who stood at attention against the wall. The white-uniformed soldiers were stationed at discrete points around the room: Jyn had counted at least fifty. But better that they patrolled the ballroom, she thought, than the corridors leading to the ISB building.

As soon as they were seated at their table, Jyn eagerly started on a fresh glass of champagne. "How many of those have you had?" Kay asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Don't worry about it. I know my limit."

"Let's hope so." He glanced down at a paper detailing the schedule for the evening. "Music and dancing, keynote speech, dinner. The singer is someone named Sy Snootles. Sy Snootles?" He looked up at Jyn, bewildered and vaguely disgusted. "Who's ever heard of Sy Snootles?"

"Maybe she's new. The next Lady Gaga or Sia or something," Jyn mused.

As it turned out, Sy Snootles was not the new Lady Gaga, but a leggy torch singer of the kind of romantic ballads popular during the forties and early fifties. If the Imperials thought there was any irony in their gala being entertained by some of the same songs that had boosted the morale of soldiers fighting the Axis powers in World War II, they didn't show it. As soon as the music began the space in front of the dais began to fill with dancing couples: men in uniforms and polished boots, wives or lovers in fine gowns dripping with jewels. After a couple of songs, Jyn coughed pointedly to draw Kay's attention.

"Something stuck in your throat, darling?"

"I think maybe you should ask me to dance now," she said.

Kay looked at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Uh, no. No, we won't be dancing."

"Why not?"

"Because we just won't."

"Oh, I get it. Your 'programming' didn't include dancing skills? You want to spare my toes from getting trod on? That's very considerate of you."

Kay drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, grimacing. Then, rather like a dueler throwing down a gauntlet, he wadded up his cloth napkin and tossed it in the center of his salad plate. "I happen to be an excellent dancer," he said, rising and offering Jyn his hand.

"Ha." The laugh came out of her sounding rather sickly. Jyn hadn't expected Kay to rise to the bait; now she was regretting her challenge. "Maybe it's not such a good idea after all--" she began.

"It would look odd if you turned me down now," Kay hissed through a fake smile, extending his hand further. Jyn swallowed tightly and took it.

The song was "Someone to Watch Over Me" and Sy was milking it for all its dramatic worth. The music was so slow and languid that the couples on the dance floor were barely moving. Jyn was suddenly aware of how tall Kay was, of how small she felt pressed against him: even in heels her eyes were barely on the level of his chin. She was vaguely aware that her palm was sweaty in his hand and she closed her eyes, dreading the inevitable. They had been dancing for less than thirty seconds before it happened.

"Ouch! Goddamnit!" Kay hissed, hopping on the foot that hadn't just been stepped on.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Jyn whispered, urging him to keep dancing. "I won't do it again."

But in another twenty seconds, she did.

"Again?" he yelped.

"I'm sorry, I'm not doing it on purpose," Jyn pleaded. "It's just-- I've never danced like this before."

Kay pulled back a little so that he could look at her. "What? Never?" She shook her head, blushing a little. "But-- what about at school, school dances? You can't tell me the boys weren't lining up--"

Jyn laughed. "Remember to have me show you my school pictures. I was all teeth. Besides," she continued, more soberly, "I wasn't in school for long. My mother homeschooled me for several years. We were on the run, remember."

"Right," Kay said quietly. "And then you were with Gerrera."

"I don't know what your life was like before the Alliance but in mine there weren't many opportunities for dancing."

Kay was silent for a time. "You're doing fine," he finally said.

Jyn couldn't quite believe her ears. She had expected a critique, or at least a snide remark about having trod on him. She felt a quite horrible, unreasonable swell of affection for him at that moment, and it seemed like as good a time as any to put her plan into action: especially considering the couple they were dancing nearest to. Leaning up on the toes, Jyn planted a chaste kiss on Kay's cheek, just forward of his right ear. He immediately froze in surprise, which was just what she was hoping he'd do.

"I'm about to do something reckless," she whispered.

"Oh no..."

Jyn stumbled backwards, bumping forcefully into the couple behind them. Tripping on her heels, she flailed and was only prevented from falling by the gallant action of the man she had collided with.

"Oh I'm terribly sorry!" she cried, clutching the man as she regained her balance. "I'm such a klutz!"

"It's quite all right, my dear," General Maximilian Veers replied, giving Jyn a charming smile. "I hope you're uninjured? No twisted ankle?"

"Oh no, I think I'm fine." Jyn laughed airily, giving Veers's arm a little squeeze. "Perhaps I should forgo anymore of the excellent champagne though!" Thanking him again, she turned back to Kay. "Honey, I hate to end our dance early, but I need to go powder my nose."

"Of course," Kay said, thoroughly confused. Jyn took his arm and, as they walked back towards their table, she whispered: "Wait until the keynote address starts and then come and find me. By the skywalk."

Kay watched her walk away, her head held high, supremely confident in her movements. He had no idea what had just happened, but he hoped she knew what she was doing.

If she didn't, Cassian was going to hear about it in the strongest possible terms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up: Car chases, stolen intel, and making out for the sake of the Alliance.


	3. Infiltration: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The theft of the Imperial intel doesn't go exactly as planned for Jyn and Kay. It will take some quick-thinking, amorous playacting, and Jyn's surprisingly fearsome car-jacking skills to get them out of the Empire's clutches.

The keynote speech that evening was being given by Moff Tiaan Jejerrod and would focus on the technical glories the Empire had achieved over the past few decades. A few minutes after Jerjerrod had taken the podium, Kay made a show of checking his watch and gazing, pointedly and lovelorn, at Jyn's empty chair, then rose discretely and left the ballroom by the nearest exit. The corridor outside was silent and deserted.

"Hey there sweetheart," Jyn teased as he emerged from the elevator on the third floor. "Keynote speech boring?"

"Stultifying." He looked around. Here too the corridor was deserted, as if the floors of the hotel all around the ballroom had been cleared of all guests and personnel. But there were no stormtroopers in sight either. Just as Dodonna had anticipated, the Empire was relying on its electronic security systems to keep out intruders. "Are you ready?"

"Always."

They entered the glass-walled skywalk, a short walk but one they made quickly, casting glances over their shoulders. The walk was curved in its middle section, making it impossible for them to see if they were being pursued, but they paused several times to listen for footsteps approaching from either direction. At the opposite end of the walk was a spacious atrium with a reception desk and a small lounge area where people could sit and gaze out at the unparalleled view of the city around them. Behind the reception desk were the main doors to the ISB office.

Since it was well past working hours, the atrium was dark and empty, but as soon as Jyn and Kay crossed from the skywalk to the room, automatic lights flashed on, illuminating the atrium as brightly as day.

"Shit!" Kay cried, glancing at the atrium's bank of curtainless windows, plainly visible from the hotel. "Every window over there can see that someone's in here!"

"Yeah, and someone's already noticed." Jyn pointed across to the similar bank of windows in the hotel corridor they had just left. A white-uniformed figure was striding hurriedly towards the entrance of the skywalk and, within seconds, they could hear the echo of footsteps, coming fast.

"We're 100% screwed," Kay pronounced in a frantic whisper. "There's absolutely no reason that two people from the gala would be hanging around alone up here in the atrium of the ISB building!"

An idea flashed into Jyn's brain. "Isn't there?" she said, and then to Kay's complete astonishment she pushed him back against the reception desk.

"You've snuck out of the gala to fuck your fiancee," she whispered, her eyes flashing, and she wrapped the end of his tie around her hand and pulled him around until her back was to the desk. "Now make it look convincing." 

Throwing her arms around his neck, she pressed her mouth hard to Kay's. He gave a little yelp of surprise as Jyn used his body as leverage to raise herself up upon the desk, pulling him in tight against her and wrapping her legs around his torso. 

Her mouth was open and hot, her tongue thrusting against his, and Kay was so astonished that it took him a long moment to even attempt to join in the act. He kissed her back and put his hands on her waist as Jyn raked her fingers hard through his hair. The footsteps were drawing closer and Jyn apparently thought that a more impressive show was in order, for she was suddenly scrabbling for the zipper that ran up one side of her bodice, dragging it down and pulling the dress loose enough to expose her bra. She broke the kiss and, taking hold of Kay's head, pushed his face down into her cleavage.

"Oh God!" she moaned loudly, grinding one heel into the small of his back, hands grazing down his chest and groping his hips. Then she reached forward and grabbed both of Kay's hands, placing one on her thigh, the other on her lace-covered breast, and Kay made a strange strangled sort of sound deep in his throat. "Oh yes! Oh yes, oh God yes!" Jyn cried wildly, tangling her fingers in his hair, pressing her face against the side of his head and rocking her body against him. The footsteps had almost reached them. "You're so good, Kay!" Jyn panted, throwing her head back, bringing Kay's head back up to her throat. He had thrown himself into the performance at last and sucked at her skin as he grasped her thigh, raising it harder and higher against his side. 

The footsteps halted. There was a silence that Jyn moaned through, and she pressed her face against Kay's head again and peered through narrowed eyes. A stormtrooper stood on the threshold of the atrium, a look of abject disgust on his face, and after a moment he pivoted on his heel and fled back down the skywalk.

Jyn waited a moment, listening, Kay's breath hot on her breasts. Then she saw the flash of the white uniform in the windows of the hotel corridor and gave a sigh of relief. "It's clear," she whispered.

Kay didn't move. In fact he seemed oddly frozen in place. "Kay, we can move now," Jyn said, and she gave him a little shake. He started, staring at her.

"What?"

"We can move now." Jyn zipped her dress back up and hopped down from the desk, moving towards the main doors. When Kay still didn't move, a dazed sort of look on his face, she hissed: "Come on!"

He seemed to rouse himself then, joining her quickly at the door. But then Jyn was hiking up her skirt, removing the handgun from the garter around her thigh, and Kay nearly stumbled over his own feet as he passed by her. She gestured angrily at the door and Kay seemed finally to snap out of his reverie. Going to a control panel on one side, he pulled his tablet out of an inside pocket along with something that looked like a ballpoint pen until he depressed the end, revealing a screwdriver. Holding the gun out before her, Jyn backed up far enough to watch him work.

"How many things do you carry around in your jacket?" she marveled.

"None of your business." Kay was connecting the tablet to a port inside the panel. "It will only take a moment to upload the virus. And in the meantime--" He moved to a numbered keypad and took yet another object out of his inside pocket: a pair of dark-framed glasses. "Let's see if we can crack this baby," he said, putting them on.

"I didn't know you needed glasses," Jyn teased.

Kay glared at her. "I don't. Here." He took them off and handed them to her. "Put them on and look at the keys. Tell me what you see."

"It's too bad," she murmured, working the glasses on with her free hand. "You look pretty cute wearing them."

Kay's mouth fell open, ostensibly to utter some snappy comeback. But all that came out was a rather high-pitched "I do?"

"Fingerprints!" Jyn cried, gazing at the keypad through the lenses. "I can see which keys have been touched."

"Precisely." Taking them back and putting them on, Kay considered the keys. "Three keys: the zero, the one, and the nine. Which gives us--" He closed his eyes for a moment, "--six possible combinations. And of those, I calculate that there's a 63% chance--" Biting his lip, he punched in 1-0-9. There was a soft click and the indicator light at the top of the keypad switched from red to green.

Jyn gaped at him. "That was amazing!"

"The virus is uploaded." Kay moved past her to remove his tablet and close the panel. "All security alarms should be off. Now the only thing left to do is to bypass the card key interface--"

"Or you could just use this." As Kay knelt in front of the key card slot, Jyn dangled a black card key emblazoned with the Imperial cogwheel in front of his face.

"How?"

"Courtesy of General Veers," she replied, smirking.

Kay took the card, shaking his head as he looked at her. "Jyn Erso, you are a continual surprise."

Jyn felt herself blush stupidly at this and, to cover it, she made an impatient gesture. "Come on, Droid. Let's get in there."

The main doors opened and they made their way inside, every corridor they turned into clear of guards or personnel. There were more doors to get through before they came upon any computers, however, and each one required Kay to select a passcode in addition to using Veers's key card. But Jyn's gambit saved them a great deal of time, and soon enough they had reached a kind of operations room where several computers sat grouped around a central table.

"It's not networked," Kay said, checking the connections on one, and he sat down to begin hacking his way inside. Jyn hovered over him, glance passing from door to door, once and awhile watching Kay's progress as he bypassed the security checks and entered the main file system.

"It's too easy," she murmured, hands sweaty on the gun. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"It only seems easy because the Empire doesn't expect this kind of attack," Kay said. He had plugged his tablet into the computer's port and was downloading the personnel file, the progress bar on the screen filling slowly with color. "Their resources are deployed to guard against military incursions: tanks and bombs and people marching with pitchforks and torches. They don't expect clandestine acts. Besides, we Rebels are too ratty and stupid and disorganized for espionage, remember?"

The file loaded and Kay disconnected the tablet. Pumped with adrenaline, they retraced their steps as quickly as possible, returning to the main doors in mere minutes.

"Well that was unexpectedly sim--" Kay was starting to say as they emerged, when Jyn threw herself against him, pushing him to the floor.

A stormtrooper had appeared suddenly, having crouched on the opposite side of the reception desk to await their appearance. He raised his gun and fired, Jyn firing at the same moment as she pushed Kay aside. The stormtrooper fell backward, a spray of blood from his neck dappling scarlet across his pristine uniform.

"Jyn!" Kay cried, turning and climbing to his feet. She was sprawled on the floor, grimacing with pain and clutching at her right thigh.

"It's just a graze," she murmured as he went to her, helping her to her feet. "Nothing more than a cut. We'll worry about it later. Let's get out of here."

They sprinted down the skywalk, emerging into the hotel corridor just as the elevator doors at the end of the hall opened to reveal a whole squad of troopers. "I think our luck just ran out," Jyn said.

"Have we ever really had any?" Kay asked, grabbing Jyn's arm and pulling her in the opposite direction. "Can you run in those things?" he asked, gesturing to her heels as he pushed open the door to an emergency stairwell.

"Of course," she panted. "It's just like running on stilts."

"Who runs on stilts?" Kay cried.

They raced down three flights of stairs to the ground floor, bursting out an emergency exit onto a side street. "And I was going to order the chicken parmesan for dinner," Kay complained.

"Sorry about that." Jyn was listening at the door of the stairwell. "They're coming."

"We can't expect a cab to outrun these guys, even if we can hail one," Kay said, eyes wide as he scanned the street. "I'll have to hot-wire a car."

"No time for that!" Before he could argue, Jyn had jumped forward, out into the street in the path of an oncoming SUV. She had replaced the gun in her garter; now she held up her hand as if that alone gave her the power to stop several tons of metal before it could flatten her. The driver hit the brakes and the car squealed to a stop.

"Okay, it's official, you are insane!" Kay cried, but Jyn was already at the driver's side door, yanking it open.

"Get out," she demanded of the driver, a bearded, burly man.

"Is this some kind of joke?" he laughed, looking down at the petite woman in her silk velvet gown who was scowling up at him.

"Not one you'll find funny." In a flash, Jyn had pulled her baton from where she'd strapped it high on her left thigh, and slammed it into the man's solar plexus. Bleeding and blubbering, the man raised both hands in surrender and climbed out of the car. "Get in!" Jyn yelled at Kay and in seconds they were barreling down the busy street, dodging cars and screaming through red lights.

Kay braced himself against the dashboard, staring at Jyn in utter astonishment. "What else do you have up your skirt?"

"None of your business. Are they on us?" she asked, tossing her head back to indicate the street behind them.

Kay turned to look out the back window. "No, I think we-- Yes. Yes, two of them. And gaining on us fast."

Jyn glanced into the rear view mirror. Sure enough, two of the Empire's trademark TIE vehicles - low to the ground, streamlined, and incredibly fast - were threading through the traffic behind them in hot pursuit, the neon lights of the surrounding buildings blurred streaks on their sleek black paint. Just as Kay had said, they were gaining fast. Losing them was going to take something more than fast driving.

"You're going to have to take over driving," Jyn told Kay, already letting her foot off the gas as she pulled the gun once more from the garter around her thigh.

"What?!" He had no time to argue. Jyn was crawling over his lap to the passenger side window, hitting the window controls with her free hand. 

"Drive!" she screamed, and sticking her head out the window, she took aim at the closest TIE and fired.

Kay slid awkwardly over into the driver's seat and wrenched the wheel violently to the left, narrowly avoiding a car that had just pulled into the street from an access road, and he shuddered as Jyn fired another round. "How much collateral damage are we accruing back there?" he asked, whipping the SUV abruptly to the right and onto an overpass.

"Don't worry about criticizing my marksmanship, just drive!" Jyn took aim again and pulled the trigger. All of her shots had struck the foremost TIE - glancing off roof and hood and fender, one even smacking into the windshield - but all to no avail. But her last bullet found its mark: the right front tire burst and sparks showered the road as the steel rim hit the pavement. 

"One down," she told Kay, pulling herself back inside. "The other one got snarled up in some traffic and fell behind. If you put on some speed, I think we can lose them."

"Put on some speed?" Kay's tone was incredulous. "I'm going ninety-five and there's already an 80% chance we're going to end up plastered to the back end of a semi."

"Just a little more!" Jyn urged, grasping the headrest of the seat as she turned to watch their pursuer. "We're so close to losing them. Do you want me to come over there and step on your foot?"

Grimacing, Kay increased the speed. "Thanks but you've stepped on me enough tonight."

The extra burst of speed did it. The TIE, stuck behind the cars that had braked in horror at the rampaging SUV, slid steadily out of Jyn's sight. When they'd put some miles between them and their tail, Kay took the car off the freeway and onto a series of dark side streets.

"We need to ditch this car as soon as possible," he said, and spotting a gas station in the near distance, he turned into the parking lot. Pulling into a dark spot away from the glow of the lights, Kay turned off the ignition and Jyn checked her gun, ready to get out of the car and commandeer another vehicle.

"Wait. I don't think that will be necessary this time," Kay told her. He pointed through the windshield at an older man who had just parked an old Jeep in a nearby slot to go into the convenience store. "Look at the bumper. That's an old Alliance Firebird sticker on there."

Jyn squinted. The Firebird had been an underground symbol of support for the Rebellion for decades, spray-painted on bridges and overpasses, tattooed on arms, carved into the trunks of trees. 

"It's half of one," Jyn said. "But it's been partially ripped off. Which probably means that he's no longer sympathetic."

"Have you ever known anyone to go from the Alliance to the Empire?" Kay asked. "The opposite, yes, but not that. It's more likely he tried to remove it when the Empire moved its tanks into his part of the city, but it was a half-hearted attempt. If stopped he could claim the sticker was put on the bumper by a previous owner."

His mind made up, Kay got out of the car and walked towards the Jeep, Jyn running to catch up. "I still think my way is the better one," she told him.

"Now why doesn't that surprise me?"

The old man emerged from the store and walked up to his vehicle, stopping in his tracks when he saw Kay and Jyn approaching. He had a weather-beaten face and his once fine, embroidered clothing was tattered and patched, its vivid colors long since faded.

"Greetings, good sir," Kay said. "My partner and I are agents of the Rebel Alliance, and we find ourselves in need of a vehicle with which to continue our resistance activities. We'd like to commandeer yours."

Jyn gripped her gun hard behind her back, ready to pull it on the old man if necessary. But his eyes narrowed as he peered at them, first at Jyn, then at Kay, and he held up both hands in a gesture of peace.

"I'm no fool," he said. "You're dressed too well to be Rebels. And you," he fixed Kay with a particularly suspicious glare, "you talk like an Imperial." With a shaking hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. "I know an Imperial loyalty test when I encounter one. I have two grandchildren at home. Their parents were killed in a Separatist bombing during the Clone Wars. They need their grandfather. Take the car," he said, and he held out the keys. "But please don't hurt me or mine."

Kay took the keys slowly, Jyn watching him. He swallowed hard as he regarded the old man and in a quiet voice he said: "The Emperor will reward you for your loyalty."

They started to climb into the Jeep when Kay had a second thought and, turning back, dug a slightly wadded bill from the pocket of his trousers. "For cab fare," he explained, pressing it into the man's hand. The old man stared at the money, blinked, then wandered back towards the store.

"What?" Kay snapped defensively when he saw Jyn staring at him. He climbed into the driver's seat and she got in on the passenger's side, gritting her teeth against the pain in her thigh. The bullet wound was throbbing and she could feel the blood, sticky and congealed against the fabric of her skirt, but she said nothing and turned her attention to Kay instead.

"That was a hundred dollar bill you gave him," she said.

Kay shrugged. "Mission expenditure money. I was planning on hitting the snack machine at the hotel this evening."

Jyn couldn't repress a smile. "So the Droid has a heart after all."

He glanced aside at her, brow furrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." They drove in silence for awhile until Jyn said: "You've never told me your story, you know."

"My story?"

"How you came to join the Alliance. Cassian's told me bits and pieces, but--" She hesitated, half-expecting to be rebuffed. "I'd like to hear the whole thing. From you."

Kay said nothing for a few minutes. "There isn't much to tell," he said at last. "I had a pretty normal childhood. As normal as you can have when you're--"

"You," Jyn put in for him. Kay nodded.

"Anyway, when I was fourteen I won a scholarship to a pretty prestigious technical institute--"

"Cassian talked about that. A place for tech prodigies."

"Yeah. The Arakyd Academy. I was there for a few years, learning all kinds of programming and coding, some engineering--"

"And then the Empire came."

"And then the Empire came." Kay sighed. "The Empire took over the Academy and began the process of recruiting all of us into its ranks. Some people considered it a great opportunity for advancement, wealth, power. But the kind of stuff they were teaching us--" He shook his head. "I wanted no part of it. So I ran."

Jyn pressed her hand to her wound, trying not to think about the pain. "What did you do?"

"Traveled. Hacking, doing odd jobs, heists, hitting Imperial targets for resistance fighters much like your Saw Gerrera. Then one day I met Cassian. And the rest is history."

Jyn nodded. "Thank goodness for Cassian."

Kay turned his head, glancing at her in the shifting lights that lined the road. "Yeah. Thank goodness," he said rather sadly.

"I'm glad," Jyn added, smiling at him. 

"Glad?"

"That you're on our side."

Kay didn't know how to respond. He reached into his jacket and took out the tablet, handing it to Jyn. "The directions to the safe house are on there. It wouldn't do us any good to get lost now."

Jyn swiped the screen and found the relevant file. In the back of her mind, as she read the directions off to Kay, she was remembering that it might take as long as two, even three, days for the Alliance to arrange a safe extraction for them. Two or three days, stuck in a safe house with Kay Tuesseau.

For some reason that no longer seemed so terrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up: Kay plays doctor, Jyn gets drunk, and Alliance safe houses have only one bed.


	4. Intoxication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing in all his years of fighting the Empire has prepared Kay Tuesseau for dealing with the mischief of a drunk Jyn Erso. Bad jokes, inappropriate propositions, awkward conversations, and uncomfortable self-revelations ensue.

The Alliance safe house was one of a row of townhouses in an artsy, bohemian section of the city, the kind of ethnically diverse, fiercely independent neighborhood the Empire had had the most difficulty making inroads in. In fact, Jyn doubted that they had made any significant gains in conquering that section of the city. Between the scattered rows of houses, the street was lined with cafes and galleries; the sidewalks were crowded with food vendors and market stalls and bustling with people, even though it was well after ten. Neon lights and live music from a dozen different bands spilled in both directions across the street, and Jyn felt a momentary longing for her days of shiftless wandering, when she could have mixed amid the people in such a crowd and enjoyed herself with nothing more than responsibility for her own survival hanging over her head.

But those days were over. She was a member of the Alliance now, and the good of the Rebellion was preeminent. The first priority for her and Kay upon reaching the safe house and stowing the commandeered Jeep safely away in the garage, was to prepare to transmit the stolen intel to Alliance headquarters.

The townhouse was small but modern, the two floors above the garage consisting of only a few rooms, all as sparsely decorated as they were minimally furnished. In the den, the largest room on the central floor, Kay went straight to a large cabinet against one wall, the kind of thing that looked like it might hold a large flatscreen t.v. But when he opened the double doors, Jyn saw a sophisticated communications array consisting of a computer, router, and secure phone. 

"There's a small satellite dish hidden on the roof," Kay explained to her as he powered up the machine, "giving us our own private, secure uplink. We can contact headquarters as we upload the file."

As he got the equipment ready, Jyn ventured into the small kitchen and pulled up her skirt, getting her first good look at the furrow the stormtrooper's bullet had cut across her thigh. It was so messy with blood she couldn't determine how deep it was, and fresh blood was still bubbling up through the dried gore. Grabbing a handful of paper towels, she wet them and wiped as much of the blood away as she could, then grabbed another handful and pressed it hard against the wound. As much as it ached - and it did, a throbbing burn that seemed to reach down to her bone - she had no intention of missing the transmission of the file she and Kay had risked so much to get. The wound could wait. As she was leaving the kitchen, Jyn spied a bottle of liquor behind a half-open cabinet door and she grabbed it, not even caring what it was. It would take the edge off the pain and calm the strange dive-bombing butterflies that had taken up residency in her stomach ever since the gala. Working the cap off with her free hand, she started swigging the alcohol down as she returned to the den.

Kay had taken off his jacket and, in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, was entering a number into the keypad of the phone. "I'm contacting headquarters," he told Jyn, and she heard a shrill tone coming from the receiver, followed almost immediately by a voice.

"Cassian, it's Kay."

"Kay!" Jyn heard Cassian cry. "You're not calling me from the Venator, are you?"

"Don't be stupid, of course not. We're at the safe house. I'm getting ready to upload the intel - can you monitor its receipt? Here, Jyn can explain." He thrust the receiver into her hand. "I'm sure you want to talk to Cassian. I'll get the upload started."

"Jyn!" She could hear the relief in Cassian's rich voice as she put the phone to her ear. "Did I hear Kay right? You got the file?"

"Yes, we got it. Kay's uploading it now. But we ran into security and had to leave the gala in a bit of a hurry. I'm afraid our covers are blown."

"Don't worry about it, all that matters is that you're both okay." When Jyn didn't respond immediately, Cassian said: "You _are_ both okay, right?"

"Yeah, we're fine." She ignored the quizzical look Kay cast her. ""Not a scratch. We'll just stay here and keep a low profile until we can be extracted, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, just stay in place. I'll inform the Council immediately. Shouldn't take more than a day or two. Hang tight. I'm proud of you guys, I knew you could do it."

"Why didn't you tell Cassian about the gunshot?" Kay asked as soon as Jyn had hung up. He had connected his tablet and was sending the file through a relay of encrypted connections.

Jyn shrugged. "I just-- didn't want to worry him."

"Of course. Right," Kay said with a frown. He did a double-take as Jyn raised the bottle to her lips. "What are you drinking?"

She turned the bottle around, considering the label. "Johnnie Walker."

"Yeah, well you might want to slow down a little. You had more than a few glasses of champagne at the gala."

"I'm good," she said breezily, taking another deep swig. "How's the upload going?"

"It's going, but slowly. I'm relaying it through ten different anonymous servers so it can't be traced, and encrypting it anew at each hub, so it's going to take a little while." He glanced at where Jyn's was holding the wad of paper towels to her thigh. "We need to get that tended to," he said, and he was on his feet immediately, heading for the kitchen.

"You know you're not actually a doctor," Jyn called after him, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, her head growing a bit heavy. "That was just for the gala."

"As it happens, my training - my 'programming,' as you like to call it - included a good deal of emergency field medicine." He emerged from the kitchen carrying a First Aid kit. "On the couch," he ordered her.

"I can handle it myself."

"Sit," he hissed and Jyn rolled her eyes and plopped down on the sofa, suddenly too weary to argue. 

"You can accept help once and awhile, you know," Kay said, kneeling in front of her and opening the kit. "It's not a sign of weakness."

"I never said it was."

Kay took off his cufflinks and rolled the sleeves of his silky black shirt up to his elbows. Gingerly pushing the material of her skirt away from the wound, he frowned as he considered it. "You told me it was a scratch," he said, looking darkly up at her. "This is considerably more than a scratch."

"Graze, scratch, whatever." Jyn took another long gulp of whiskey. "At least there's no embedded bullet, right?"

"Might have been less messy that way." Kay put one hand on Jyn's knee, holding it firmly as he prepared to clean the wound with antiseptic. "This is probably going to sting."

"I can handle it." It did sting, but so did the whiskey, sizzling its way down her throat, distracting her attention from the wound. In truth she probably should have stopped drinking - she told herself this - for she was feeling odder by the moment. But the growing buzz in her head was less troubling than the sense of disquiet she felt but couldn't qualify. It was a vague flutter of unease, a tingling discomfort running along every nerve, but for the life of her Jyn couldn't understand what was causing it. Nor was she entirely sure she wanted to. So she kept taking swigs from the bottle, watching Kay as he carefully and gently cleaned her wound. It was as shallow as she'd thought, once the blood was wiped away, and looked as if it might even heal without leaving much of a scar. As Kay began fitting a bandage to the wound, Jyn noticed absently that he had nice hands: long, slender fingers and strong wrists, forearms liberally dusted with golden hair. As he taped the bandage in place, he laid his free left hand on the inside of her thigh to hold her leg steady as he worked. His palm was warm against the tender flesh, his fingers covering so large an area, and Jyn found herself considering how little farther they would need to travel... A frisson of excitement shot into the pit of her stomach and spiraled up her spine.

"No!"

Jyn jerked away in horror and Kay froze, looking up at her in surprise. "What? Am I hurting you?"

Her cheeks flushing with heat, Jyn shook her head. "No. No, I just--" She scrambled for an excuse. "You're wrong, I mean. About me. I can accept help. Sometimes."

Kay smirked, returning to the bandaging. "Not terribly gracefully. Speaking of help, though-- Thank you."

"For what?" Jyn asked, feigning confusion.

Kay met her gaze. "For saving my life."

Jyn gave a little shrug and took another gulp from the bottle. "Just part of the job."

"Well given that your nickname for me is Target Practice, I appreciate that you made the effort."

Jyn rubbed uncomfortably at her neck. "Yeah, well, to tell the truth, I keep thinking--" She paused for another drink. "I keep thinking that if I'd been a second slower, or if I hadn't seen that trooper at all, or if I'd missed my shot--" She bit her lip as she looked down at him. "I might have lost you."

Kay stopped taping the bandage for a moment and looked back at her, his expression confused. "But you didn't. And besides, even if you had," he grinned at her, "that wouldn't have been so bad for you, would it?"

"Don't say that," Jyn snapped. "It isn't funny. I can't imagine having had to go back to the team, back to Cassian, and explain how I lost his best friend."

Kay shook his head. "Cassian knows the risks involved in these missions. He would have understood. And then you'd have had each other to lean on. No more third wheel getting in the way, right?"

Jyn's brow furrowed as she stared at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

He was picking up the gauze he'd used to clean her wound, snapping the kit closed again. "Nothing. Never mind. Forget I said it."

Leaving Jyn on the sofa, Kay took the kit back to the kitchen and started rummaging through the fridge and cabinets. He felt an inexplicable sense of irritation that only grew worse as he discovered the meager stores the last occupant of the safe house had neglected to replenish. Some bottled water, stale crackers, a couple of cans of tuna. As soon as he was back at headquarters he'd be writing up a very strongly worded complaint. Settling for a cup of instant coffee, he filled a kettle with water and set it to boil, going back into the den. 

Jyn had risen from the sofa and had turned on a radio in one corner of the room. Flipping through the stations, she was swaying erratically back and forth from one foot to the other, tossing back a fresh mouthful of whiskey every few seconds. Kay checked on the progress of the file transmission as Jyn half-danced, half-teetered with her bottle; just as he turned to go back into the kitchen and fetch his coffee, Jyn caught his arm.

"Hey Kay, wanna hear a joke?" she asked, her smile crooked, her hazel eyes glittering with amusement. He had sensed that she'd been on edge for some reason while he'd tended her wound; now her mood had swung, pendulum-like, to an extreme of giddiness that was a sure sign of intoxication. Kay sighed heavily.

"Not really."

Jyn plunged onward as if she hadn't heard him. "What do you call a computer program that cooks noodles?" She was already starting to giggle at the answer.

Straining not to roll his eyes, Kay said: "I don't know. Nor do I care."

"An E-wok." Jyn watched him for a reaction: when he didn't give one, she collapsed backwards onto the sofa, laughing hysterically.

"Cassian," Kay groaned, staring at the ceiling as if his best friend were a deity who might be able to swoop down and rescue him. "I'm going to make you some coffee," he said to Jyn, walking back to the kitchen.

By the time he returned she was up again, wandering about the room, peering closely at the few cheap prints that hung on the walls and taking faster swigs from the bottle. Setting the cups of coffee down, Kay went to her and made a grab for the whiskey. "You need to stop."

Jyn jerked the bottle out of his reach, dancing a few steps away. "And you need to--" she made a wild gesture with both hands, "--loosen your gears a little." Kay made another attempt to take the bottle; again Jyn played keep-away, jumping past him with a manic laugh. She wandered over to a pair of French doors that looked out upon the back garden and peered through the curtains. "Look, there's a pool!" she cried, excitedly. "Oh, let's go swimming!" She had the doors unlocked and was outside before Kay could stop her.

"Jyn! Jyn, no!" He followed her out upon a small stone patio, but his fear that she might drown herself proved unlikely. What she had taken for a pool was nothing more than a tiny ornamental pond, the kind usually stocked with koi and lotus blossoms. But the Alliance had no need of such frivolities, so the pond was filled instead with scummy rainwater, leaves, and dead bugs. Nonetheless, in her drunkenness, Jyn seemed enamored. 

"Get in with me," she said, beaming up at him as she knelt by the side of the pond and dipped her fingers into the water.

"No."

"Why not?" she pouted.

"Aside from the fact that neither of us could fit inside that? I really don't think this is the time for swimming."

"We're done with the mission, now we just have to wait around for an extraction." She scooped up a palmful of water and poured it down the neck of her dress. "Come on, Kay. Can't you swim?

"Yes I can swim. No, I'm not going to."

"Why not?"

He flailed for an answer, the tiny size of the pond having failed to deter her. "Oh, I don't know, I forgot to pack swim trunks?"

Jyn gave him a lopsided grin. "We could go skinny-dipping."

"Oh God, no," he said emphatically.

"What, are you afraid of getting your wires wet?" she teased, flicking water up at him. Kay blinked as it hit him in the face. "Afraid you might short circuit?" She flicked more water at him and Kay brushed it off, scowling.

"Can you just please stop now?" he asked. "You've got a wound, remember? You don't want to get the dressing wet."

"Oh boo," Jyn whined, reluctantly standing up. As she did so, she swayed dramatically, extending both arms for balance as if she'd felt an earthquake.

"Jyn?"

Looking up at Kay, she made a strange face. "I feel weird," she mumbled, and her knees started to buckle.

"Oh, for the love of--!" Kay rushed forward to catch her before she hit the concrete. "You are such an idiot. What did I tell you about drinking so much?" He scooped her up in his arms.

"Not a real doctor," Jyn mumbled. Fortunately she now dropped the bottle. It struck the patio and rolled off into the pond with a soft splash. She stayed limp and pliable for only a few more seconds, however, before she started to fight against Kay, giving him feeble swats as he carried her back inside.

"No, put-- put me down! I don't need you, I can walk--"

"You told me you knew your limit, too, and see how that turned out?"

Jyn could come up with no argument so she blew a raspberry instead.

"And you called me charming." Back inside, Kay carried her to the sofa and dumped her unceremoniously down upon the cushions. Unfortunately for him, she'd grabbed his tie while he'd carried her and had wrapped it firmly around her hand. Now she pulled him down atop her.

Jyn was laughing as Kay tried to extract himself from her limbs, forcibly opening her fingers to make her let go of his tie. 

"You are ridiculous," he said, perching on the edge of the sofa as Jyn lolled back against the cushions. She leaned up and, giving him an odd little smile, laid her chin on his shoulder. 

"I felt it, you know," she whispered, her eyes glittering with mischief. "At the hotel, when we were pretending to make out." 

Kay edged away from her and, turning, stared at her. "What?"

Biting her lip and grinning, Jyn jabbed a finger playfully into his chest. "You." She giggled and reeled against him. "You're packing some impressive hardware down there, aren't you Droid?"

Kay was aware that much of the blood had suddenly drained out of his face, only to return in a hot rush that must have lit up his fair cheeks like a stop light, but he hoped Jyn was too plastered to notice it. "You're imagining things."

"Nope. I know what I felt against my thigh. Tell me," she whispered, leaning fully against him and murmuring against the rim of his ear, "do you always get that excited when a woman kisses you, or was it just because it was me?"

"Wow, you are-- so drunk," he muttered, and he gave her a light push that sent her collapsing back upon the cushions again, still laughing. Kay stood up and looked down at her, frowning.

"Take my shoes off," she said petulantly, rubbing the toe of one heel slowly down the shin of her opposite leg.

"Take your own shoes off," he answered.

Jyn made a half-assed attempt to sit up, then fell back down. "I can't reach them."

With a deep sigh, Kay picked up her left foot and began unlacing the velvet strap around her ankle. "They're not paying me enough for this," he grumbled. He tossed one heel to the floor, then the other, and stood staring down at Jyn who writhed against the cushions and grinned up at him.

"Do you want to ravish me?" she asked, her words slurring.

Kay said nothing for a few moments. Then finally: "No."

Jyn laughed. "Liar."

Just as he turned to walk away, Jyn sat back up suddenly and grabbed him by the arms. "Kay! There's something I have to tell you," she hissed urgently.

"Uh, okay," he murmured nervously.

Grabbing his tie again and pulling him so close that the tips of their noses almost touched, Jyn's eyes widened and fixed on Kay's, her lips parted. "There's something I-- something I've realized-- over these last few hours. I-- I think I--"

"Yes?" Kay gulped.

"I--" Jyn's grasp on his tie went slack, her eyes rolled back and closed, and she fell limp against the cushions once again.

"Jyn?" Kay bent over her, peering closely at her face. Her eyes remained closed; she seemed wholly insensible. "Jyn?" He touched her cheek, grasped her chin gently and shook her head back and forth. "Jyn!" Nothing.

Growing considerably alarmed, Kay hesitated for a moment then did the only thing he could think to do:

He slapped her.

It was a gentle slap, but it did the trick. Jyn's eyes popped open and she sat up, almost colliding skull-to-skull with Kay.

"Ah, there you are!" he cried, pleased with himself.

"Did you just slap me?" she cried, holding her cheek.

"I had to make sure you weren't in a coma," Kay said. "Or dead."

"You could have just checked my pulse!"

"Yeah, but that wouldn't have been as much fun."

Glaring at him, Jyn laid back down and curled herself into a ball. "Go fug yousep," she mumbled against the cushions.

"Well if it were any ordinary night," Kay wisecracked. He went to the chair where he had draped his jacket and, taking it up, spread it over her. "Get some sleep. Maybe when you wake up you'll have regained your senses. Those few you had."

"I-- 'eard-- that," Jyn slurred.

Kay took his cup of coffee and retreated across the room to the computer desk, slumping into the chair and casting Jyn's curled-up figure a wary glance. She was dead to the world, dark hair falling across her face, bare feet tucked up under a pillow at the end of the sofa, one arm hanging off the side. Sighing, Kay rested his head on one hand and watched as the graphics on the computer screen changed, confirming that the encrypted intel had reached its destination. He was sorry, in a way, that it was done: that there had been no complications for him to find a way around, no alternate hubs or servers he'd had to crack his way through. In the absence of some problem to solve, something to do, he was left with nothing but an awareness of his own thoughts, and of his body: his pulse beating a bit faster than usual, a hot tingling of discomfort spreading across the skin of his chest. Strange sensations, utterly unlike him. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt to get some air. Maybe it was the coffee: too hot, too much caffeine on top of the adrenaline of the evening. 

But Kay knew otherwise.

He tried not to think about it, what had happened in the lobby of the ISB building. About the way Jyn's fingers had raked hard through his hair. About the strong grip of her legs around his waist. How the flesh of her thigh had felt beneath his fingers, smooth and warm; how her breast, beneath the fabric of her dress, had fit perfectly round and tender in his hand. Most of all, he tried not to remember the soft, yielding wetness of her mouth, the kind of wetness a man could get addicted to tasting, dipping into it again and again and never tiring of it. He tried not to recall - mentally and physically - the way his body had responded, automatically, traitorously, to all of these sensations.

No, he wouldn't think about it.

He kept thinking about it.

Groaning, Kay let his face fall into his hands. No. He was making too big a deal of it. It was nothing. As much as he might sometimes wish it were otherwise, he wasn't a robot. He was a man and subject to the same weaknesses any man was. Jyn might be another member of the team - as well as an irritation and a potential liability - but she was also a woman, and a rather attractive one, though he was loathe to admit it. It was a natural fluke of biology that, in those particular circumstances, he had become aroused. Simple biology, and nothing more.

Yet not for the first time, Kay found himself silently bemoaning the day Jyn Erso had showed up at Alliance Headquarters. Of all the teams she might have been assigned to, why had she had to wind up with Rogue One?

 _I'll quit the team_ , he told himself. _We can't work together without needling one another, without causing each other discomfort, so I'll go to Mothma as soon as we get back and I'll ask to be transferred._ But he knew he couldn't do that. He would never leave Cassian: he owed him too much. Even if Jyn made it her mission in life to torment him, he would stay with Rogue One until the war was won.

Jyn slept on, but Kay felt too wired for rest. He stared at the computer screen, trying to think of something productive to do. The idea came to him suddenly and he was up, fixing another cup of instant coffee in the kitchen, then heading to the garage. Digging around in the glovebox of the commandeered Jeep until he found what he needed, Kay returned to the computer and settled down for a session of easy hacking, cracking his knuckles before putting his fingers to the keyboard.

"Now let's see what I can do for you, Mr.--" He checked the car's registration papers, "--Naberrie." And he began to type.

***

Jyn stirred, then sat up slowly, pushing herself up on her arms. Her hair in disarray, eyes bleary, she looked around the room until she spotted Kay, sitting at the computer desk across the room, sipping coffee and watching her. "I have a headache," she muttered.

"I bet. Blood loss, whiskey, and running from Imperials can be a potent combination."

Rubbing listlessly at her temples, Jyn swung her legs around until her feet touched the carpet. "How long have I been asleep?"

"A few hours. It's just past two."

"What have you been doing this whole time?"

Kay gestured towards himself. "What you see. Sitting. Drinking. Finishing the upload. Wondering if you were going to wake up and vomit all over the sofa."

Jyn sighed and returned his stare. "What's wrong?" she asked after a moment.

"What makes you think something's wrong?"

"You're looking at me strangely. Did I-- did I say something when I was--" Jyn shook her head as if to clear it. "I don't remember much of what happened before I fell asleep."

"Nothing happened. I uploaded the intel. We called Cassian. I helped you patch up your leg. You drank a little."

"That part I remember." Jyn clutched her stomach, still looking quizzically at Kay. "Are you sure--"

"I'm sure."

"But you look weird--"

"It's just my face, there's nothing I can do about it!" he snapped, jumping up. "You want some coffee? It's awful but at least it's hot."

Jyn nodded and Kay disappeared into the kitchen. Getting carefully to her feet, testing her balance with both hands outstretched, she moved towards the computer desk. A sheaf of papers lying beside the keyboard caught her eye and she was flipping through them a moment later when Kay returned.

"Are these from the Jeep?" she asked, accepting the cup of coffee from Kay's hand.

"Uh, yeah," he mumbled, avoiding her gaze. 

"Kay-- What did you do?" 

"Why do you--" He stopped, simply too tired for an argument. Shrugging, he sank back into the chair. "I thought maybe the guy we took the car from could get something comparable for about eight grand, used. So, his bank experienced a bit of a glitch this evening and eight grand got transferred into his account. Magically."

Jyn lowered the registration papers, looking carefully at Kay's face. "And where did this eight grand come from?"

He looked everywhere but into Jyn's eyes. He fiddled with the mouse, gazed at the oily surface of his coffee, picked up his tie and wrapped it around his hand. "You know, it's just--"

"Kay?" 

"I'll get it back," he said, throwing up his hands. "I'll explain to Mothma and the Alliance will reimburse me. Some day," he added beneath his breath.

"Eight thousand dollars, Kay." Jyn was astonished. "That's-- that's more money than I've ever had in my life. It's-- stupidly generous."

"You just had to preface that with 'stupidly,' didn't you?"

"I just mean it's-- It's really incredible," Jyn ended simply.

"Don't give me too much credit," Kay smirked, feeling a bit pleased with himself nonetheless. "I may have acquired most of it in less than legitimate ways. Imperials are terrible at passwords. You wouldn't believe how many of them think PALPATINE123 is good protection." Getting up again, he gestured towards the kitchen. "I found a little bit of food. Nothing fresh or particularly appetizing, but if you're hungry--"

"Actually I think I'd just prefer to go to bed. Get some comfortable sleep for what's left of the night." Jyn rubbed at her neck. The short length of the sofa had caused even her petite frame to fold up and she was feeling the effects of it now. 

"I did some exploring while you were out," Kay said, motioning for her to follow him upstairs. "Some of our fellow Rebels have stashed extra clothes here. You might be able to find something you can use."

The master suite took up the entirety of the third floor. A wardrobe to one side was filled with piles of clothes and Jyn and Kay began sorting through them, taking anything they thought might fit. That wasn't much. Kay grabbed a t-shirt and Jyn found a white tank top and a small pair of boxers.

"They're clean, aren't they?" she mused aloud, holding them out gingerly between two fingertips. She started to bring them to her face, then changed her mind and threw them at Kay. "You're a man. You smell them."

The boxers hit Kay in the face; angrily, he pulled them off and threw them back at Jyn. "You smell them!" He laughed as he watched her, adding: "Look at that. We've finally discovered something that scares the fearless Jyn Erso."

Grimacing, Jyn sniffed at the boxers, relief flooding her face. "Thank God. I'll change in the bathroom." She started for the door but paused, turning back to gesture at the bed. "Where are you going to sleep?"

"I"ll take the sofa. Never say I'm not gallant or unwilling to make sacrifices."

"That same sofa I was on?" Jyn shook her head. "It was hard enough on me, you won't be able to walk tomorrow."

"I'll be fine."

"No, Kay--" She sighed. "That's ridiculous. We can share the bed. Come on," she added, seeing the look he gave her. "It'll be okay. We're both adults. Relatively speaking."

"Cute," Kay murmured.

Jyn smiled. "I'll just duck in here, shall I?"

Left by himself, Kay stripped down to his boxers and put on the t-shirt, a black one advertising some place called Beggar's Canyon. Finding several extra pillows in the closet, he took one down and placed it vertically in the very center of the bed, then climbed beneath the comforter on the right side and reached over to switch off the lamp. He lay on his back, staring up through the darkness at the unseen ceiling and dreading the hours to come. He had always had trouble sleeping, a difficulty that had only increased over the course of the war. Sharing a bed with Jyn was likely to make his natural tendency towards insomnia all the worse.

In a few minutes she emerged from the bathroom, inching her way cautiously through the dark room. "I'm on the right side," Kay warned her quickly before the situation became any more embarrassing.

"Okay." Jyn lifted the comforter on the left side and started to climb in, then suddenly hesitated. "You are wearing something, aren't you?" she asked quietly.

Kay gave an irritated sort of whine. "No, I decided to make this a hundred times more awkward by being completely naked. Yes, of course I'm wearing something! I've got boxers on, they're covered in a lovely pattern that looks like computer code. Do you want me to turn on the light and show you?"

"I'll take your word for it." She climbed into the bed, sliding down and burrowing herself beneath the comforter. "What's this?" she cried, her hand brushing the pillow.

"A line of demarcation between our sovereign nations," Kay replied.

Jyn giggled in the darkness. "Between our sovereign asses, more like."

"Oh my God, you're still drunk," Kay groaned. He reached up to rub at his forehead. "People act so stupid when drunk, I've never understood it."

"Are you telling me you've never been drunk?" she asked.

"No, I never have. I've never seen the appeal of it." He was silent for a moment, then said: "My roommate at the Arakyd Academy, Needa, he used to get falling-down drunk every Friday night and then he'd spend his whole Saturday in the bathroom, puking his guts up. Always seemed like an idiotic way to waste one's weekend to me." Another pause and Kay added: "He's an Imperial now, if that tells you anything."

Jyn gave a quiet laugh. "They have recruited some winners, haven't they?"

"You're telling me."

They lay side by side, very still, both gazing up into the darkness, and a wakeful silence descended, smothering like an unneeded blanket. Jyn's mind raced, struggling to think of something to fill the void.

"Why did Admiral Sloane say that I look like a mongoose?" Kay asked suddenly.

Jyn dissolved into a fit of laughter. She felt Kay turn against his pillow to look at her.

"She didn't-- she didn't say you look like a mongoose," she stammered between laughs. "She just compared you to a mongoose. While comparing other men to snakes, you see."

"Oh." A pause. "What's the difference?"

"Between a mongoose and a snake?" Jyn teased.

"No, obviously. Between me and-- other men."

Jyn twisted the corner of the sheet in her hand. "Decency," she said finally. When Kay didn't respond, she felt the need to elaborate - or fill the awkward silence that had ensued. "I told Sloane that you're a good man. Loyal." She turned her head to gaze at him through the darkness. By the neon light of an alarm clock she could just make out his profile, the slope of his nose. "I meant it."

"You were talking about your fiancé," Kay said. "A character."

"No, I was talking about you." Jyn waited for a response. When nothing came she gave a sigh of exasperation and rolled onto her side, facing away from him. "Whatever. You don't have to believe me if you don't want to." She closed her eyes, listening to the thump of her heartbeat echoing in the ear pressed to the pillow.

"Thank you. For saying that. For thinking that."

Jyn smiled in the darkness. "You're welcome."

She felt Kay turn away from her and settle himself on his side. Bits and pieces of the evening flashed rapidly through her memory.

"Kay?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think there's--"

"I don't know."

Jyn leaned up on her elbow and turned to look at him, a broad-shouldered silhouette beneath the comforter. "You didn't let me finish."

"I knew what you were about to ask."

"Oh, so in addition to all your other prodigious talents you're also a mind reader?"

"I'm adept at anticipating what people are going to do," he said. "So in a manner of speaking, yes."

Jyn scoffed. "All right then, wise ass. What was I going to ask?"

"If I think there's any chance that the Alliance will defeat the Empire."

Jyn lay back down. "That was what I was going to ask."

"I don't know," Kay answered thoughtfully. "I hope so. But hoping isn't the same thing as knowing."

"But it's important. Rebellions are built on hope."

Kay muffled the sound of a sigh against his pillow. "You're just quoting Cassian now," he grumbled.

"Maybe. But it's true."

They lapsed into silence again. The pillow between them was heavy against Jyn's back; reaching behind her, she yanked it up and threw it to the floor. It was silly, she thought, and she drew back a few inches from the side of the bed, curling into herself the way she liked to sleep.

If their bodies collided accidentally in the night, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, she decided.

Not even close.

"You see? This isn't awkward," she mused aloud after a few minutes, her voice sleepy.

"Not in the least."

"It might have been, with other people," she continued. "But at least we aren't, you know-- Interested in each other."

"Yeah," Kay said, feigning a sleepiness he didn't feel as he stared wide-eyed at the wall. "Thank goodness for that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up: Mornings can find you in strange places. And strange positions.


End file.
